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Posts tagged with "app store"

Apple Arcade’s Prestige Problem→

Brendon Bigley wrote about the Apple Arcade report by mobilegamer.biz today on Wavelengths too. This part really rang true to me:

I don’t agree that there is any “real” difference in prestige between mediums beyond ever-changing societal norms, all art is capable of rising to sit upon a pedestal. I also don’t agree that any art necessarily needs to rise up in that way, and games built for quick hit sessions or telling small and relatable stories are just as valuable to the culture as anything else. Apple Arcade launched with a lineup that seemed to make a statement aligning with that belief, and has since drifted away from it while Netflix Games has run with the baton.

That belief is exactly the vibe Apple Arcade started with and still has – to a degree. But it’s also a vibe that people seem to sense is fading. I hope not. As much as I enjoy AAA titles, there need to be places to showcase games from small studios and for indie ‘finds.’ I’d love Apple Arcade to continue to be one of those places.

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Some Game Developers Are Unhappy about Apple Arcade→

According to multiple unnamed mobilegamer.biz sources, some game developers are unhappy with Apple Arcade, citing shrinking payouts and canceled games. No specifics about canceled projects are cited in the story. Nor are concrete revenue numbers shared. Moreover, the criticisms leveled by some developers were not universal, with some sources speaking favorably about their relationship with Apple. Clearly, however, not everyone who has worked on Arcade titles is happy.

The details of mobilegamer.biz’s story that I think are most interesting are the ones about the business terms Apple has struck with game developers. Those are details that developers seem to be contractually prohibited from talking about. I know because I’ve asked developers about how it works before. However, according to mobilegamer.biz, Arcade developers are paid an up-front fee and from a ‘bonus pool’ based on something called ‘qualifying sessions’:

“They have this opaque metric that they call a qualifying session, and bonus pool payments are made based on that,” said one source. “But no-one knows what a qualifying session actually is – it has something to do with if the game was launched, how long the player played for and how often they return. But it’s a black box, really.”

It will be interesting to see if those arrangements change in light of the purportedly declining revenue developers are earning and the money that Netflix is spending to attract games to its newish subscription-based videogame service.

We’re about three weeks away from the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and this story strikes me as an attempt to send a message to Apple by developers who feel their games have been abandoned by the service as it has evolved. Maybe Apple hasn’t been as clear with developers as some would like. However, it’s hard to imagine that game developers paying attention to Arcade are truly surprised by the projects it approves.

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Understanding Apple’s Response to the DMA

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

What a week. When it began to look like Apple would announce how it planned to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), I expected small changes at the margins that wouldn’t significantly move the needle in the EU or anywhere else. Boy, I was wrong.

Instead, we got a far-reaching, complex response that touches aspects of iOS, system apps, the App Store. There’s a lot of ground to cover, but Federico and I have talked to Apple a couple of times each about what was announced and ask questions, so it’s time to dive and try to make sense of everything.

Before getting too deep into the weeds, it’s important to understand why Apple made its announcement last week and, whether you share it or not, the company’s perspective. That makes understanding the details of what was announced easier and will hopefully help you parse legitimate criticisms of Apple’s plans from hollow hot-takes.

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Over 300 Indie Apps On Sale From Black Friday Through Cyber Monday

It’s almost Black Friday, and Matt Corey gathered indie developers to organize an app sale that runs from November 24 to November 28th, 2023. Corey, the maker of Bills to Budget, Signals, and other apps that are part of the sale, has put together a collection of over 300 apps that will be offered at a discount tomorrow and Wednesday. The list is too long to publish here but includes many we’ve covered here on MacStories and on Club MacStories in the past, including:

There are a lot of great deals, with many apps discounted by 50%, and what’s listed above is less than a quarter of the participating apps, so be sure to visit Indie App Sales for all the details, including discount codes for the apps that aren’t on the App Store, and support these great indie apps.

Apple Announces Close to 40 App Store Awards Finalists

Today, Apple announced the finalists for its App Store Awards, a selection of apps that the App Store Editorial team picks each fall to recognize “their excellence, inventiveness, and technical achievement” in ten categories.

Introducing award finalists is a departure for Apple from past years when the company only announced the winners. The change is carried over from the company’s annual Apple Design Awards that are revealed at WWDC every year and is one I like. Today’s finalists include nearly 40 apps and games that span a wide variety of categories and range from creations by solo developers to big companies. It’s an eclectic mix that captures the breadth of the App Store well.

Apple says it will reveal the winners of the App Store Awards later this month. If past announcements are any guide, the last week of November is a good bet on the timing. In the meantime, we have the complete list of finalist apps and games from Apple’s press release after the break.

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Michael Flarup Launches a Kickstarter Campaign for The macOS Icon Book→

Michael Flarup has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an illustrated book about macOS iconography. The macOS App Icon Book, which has already been fully funded, is estimated to ship in January 2024.

This book is a follow-up to The iOS App Icon Book, which was also funded via Kickstarter and shipped last year, and I reviewed on MacStories. The new title includes full-color reproductions of hundreds of icons and profiles of the designers behind some of them.

Flarup’s iOS icon book was a wonderful bit of Apple history that preserved some of the best iconography produced on the platform. It’s great to see a macOS version is being added to preserve the history of iconography on the Mac, too. If you’re interested in pledging, there are multiple reward levels, including the hardback book, a PDF version, and a set of both the iOS and macOS icon books.

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The App Store’s New Apps and Games of the Week Collections

The App Store is at once infinitely large and impossibly small. As a digital storefront, the App Store can accommodate an endless number of apps on its virtual shelves. However, at the same time, the App Store has to contend with screens as small as the iPhone SE’s 4.7” display. That poses interesting editorial challenges.

The App Store has always faced discovery challenges. From the day it opened for business 15 years ago, the App Store had more apps than it could easily display on the iPhone.

That problem only worsened with the App Store’s iOS 11 redesign. That update brought the welcome addition of editorial, curated content from the App Store’s editorial team. However, it also necessitated greater reliance on search because stories featuring individual apps and themed collections took up more space than simple lists and top charts. The result poses a difficult, ongoing balancing act between providing meaningful editorial recommendations and promoting as many apps and games as possible.

The Best in Games This Week.

The Best in Games This Week.

There are several different recurring featured stories that the App Store editorial team produces, including the App and Game of the Day, Developer Spotlights, and Featured Apps. However, a new one caught my eye recently thanks to Vidit Bhargava, the creator of LookUp and Zones.

Earlier this month, Vidit posted on Mastodon about a new App Store feature called The Best in Apps This Week. The weekly story includes notable new and updated apps, along with app events picked by the App Store editorial team. It turns out that another recurring story called The Best in Games This Week was added in early July that follows a similar format, with a mix of new, updated, and popular games, along with editorial team favorites and ongoing events.

Both of these new features are a nice way to spotlight what’s new on the App Store in one place. The short descriptions of each app and game allow more to be covered in one story but provide just enough detail to provide readers with a sense of why each is unique. I’d love to see more of this style of story on the App Store, which still relies on lists more than I’d like.

The Case for Videogame and App Preservation

On the same day that the App Store turned 15, the Video Game History Foundation released a study that concludes 87% of all classic videogames released in the US are no longer commercially available. The study looked at a broad cross-section of platforms and found that this isn’t a problem that’s limited to one corner of the videogame industry. It’s universal. As a result, a large segment of videogame history is at risk of being lost forever.

The Video Game History Foundation’s mission is to preserve videogame history, and along with libraries, museums, and archives, they’re seeking exemptions from US Copyright law to make game preservation easier. On the other side of their efforts is the gaming industry, which argues, among other things, that commercial re-releases and remasters of classic games are satisfying preservation needs.

That debate is what prompted the Foundation’s study:

It’s true that there’s more games being re-released than even before. But then why does the gaming community believe that so few classic games are still available? What’s the real story here? If we want to have a productive conversation about game preservation, we need an accurate understanding of where things stand right now.

We conducted this study to settle the facts. It’s not enough just to have a hunch. We need hard data.

The results of the Video Game History Foundation’s study tell a different story than the one the videogame industry tells and is one that’s equally applicable to mobile games and apps on Apple’s App Store. Federico and I have written about app and game preservation before, including during the 10th anniversary of the App Store. And while I applaud Apple’s decision to promote classic iOS games as part of Apple Arcade, the Foundation’s study shows that it’s not enough. It’s a start, but for every game that is given a new lease on life as part of Arcade, there are dozens that lie dormant and unplayable.

The problem extends to apps too. Craig Grannell, with the help of Internet sleuths, set out to recreate the list of 500 apps and games that debuted on the App Store as its 15th anniversary approached. Grannell’s Google Spreadsheet currently lists 355 titles, and guess what? By my count, only 43 of those apps and games have live App Store URLs, which works out to 12%, almost exactly the same results as the Video Game History Foundation’s study. Grannell’s spreadsheet may not have been compiled as rigorously as the Foundation’s study, but the point stands: we’re losing access to culturally significant apps and games on the App Store alongside the videogame industry.

That’s why I was happy to see the Video Game History Foundation take the important step of gathering the facts that support their preservation efforts. Its focus is on games, but hopefully, it will help raise awareness about preserving apps too.

A good way to learn more about the Video Game History Foundation’s study is also to listen to the latest episode of its podcast, where Kelsey Lewin and Phil Salvador of the Foundation were joined by Brandon Butler, Director of Information Policy at the University of Virginia Library and Law and Policy Advisor at the Software Preservation Network.